GOP accuses Callahan of campaign violation

FOR THE RECORD (Published Friday, February 19, 2010) A story in Thursday's Morning Call misstated the restrictions on certain donations to federal candidates' campaign committees. Candidates' state-level campaign committees are prohibited from making more than $2,400 per election in monetary or in-kind contributions to federal campaign committees. Once they donate more than $1,000 to a federal campaign, they must register with the Federal Election Commission. 3/12/2010

Democrat John Callahan violated federal campaign finance laws by spending money given him to run for mayor in a way that benefited his current campaign for Congress, the state Republican Party alleged Wednesday.

The Callahan campaign dismissed the complaint with a prepared statement.

Congressman Dent, a Republican, and Callahan, Bethlehem's mayor, hope to represent the Lehigh Valley on Capitol Hill starting in 2011. Independent Jake Towne also is campaigning.

According to the GOP complaint, Callahan in May and June improperly used his mayoral campaign fund to pay for background checks on himself to help determine whether he should run for federal office.

Filed with the Federal Election Commission by GOP State Chairman Robert Gleason, the complaint raps Callahan for spending $9,932 of his mayoral campaign's cash to pay for research from Austin, Texas-based Stanford Campaigns. The complaint says the work benefited his drive to unseat Dent in the 15th District.

''John Callahan's decision to improperly use funds from his mayoral campaign to support his bid for Congress is wrong,'' Gleason said in a statement.

The complaint cites an October story in The Morning Call in which Justin Schall, Callahan's congressional campaign manager, says Callahan had the background checks done on himself before he announced his run for Congress. The complaint says such expenditures are barred by federal election law and Callahan should have reported them to the FEC.

Schall said Callahan consulted election attorneys, who told him that because the information might be helpful to his mayoral campaign, he should pay for it with his mayoral campaign fund. After Callahan decided to run for Congress (partly based on the information), the congressional campaign had to pay for it, Schall said, and did so in the first quarter of this year.

The two campaigns took the opportunity Wednesday to take shots at each other. Callahan's campaign said the complaint was an effort to change the subject from Dent's support of electricity deregulation. Dent noted the ''irony that by running a criminal background check on himself, John Callahan may have broken the law relating to campaign financing.''

It can take many months, even years, for the FEC to render a decision on a campaign finance complaint, said Dave Levinthal, spokesman for the The Center for Responsive Politics.

He noted U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter's campaign paid a fine about a week ago relating to campaign finance violations that were part of his 2004 re-election campaign.

''Anyone can of course file a complaint,'' Levinthal said. ''Whether it comes to fruition is the purview of the Federal Election Commission. Oftentimes, it is a very long process.''

FEC spokesman Christian Hilliand said the agency has not yet received Gleason's complaint and that he couldn't comment on the specifics.

Hilliand said in general, state political committees are not permitted to transfer money or in-kind services to federal campaigns. State committees can donate up to $2,400 to a federal campaign if the money is certified to have come from donations that comply with federal campaign rules.